


From the End, to the Beginning

by RyanSinclairDontYouDare



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Cute lesbians, F/F, Fluff, Lesbian Relationship, Lesbian Romance, Short One Shot, lesbian fluff, thasmin, thasmin fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-18 09:50:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16992720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RyanSinclairDontYouDare/pseuds/RyanSinclairDontYouDare
Summary: Established Thasmin One-ShotYaz asks The Doctor to teach her how to write in Gallifreyan.





	From the End, to the Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: The characters and show belong to the BBC and Chris Chibnall. Features The Doctor as portrayed by Jodie Whittaker, and Yasmin 'Yaz' Khan as portrayed by Mandip Gill. Any relation to real world events or people are purely coincidental. 
> 
> This is a one shot and revolves around established Thasmin within the AU.

Within the depths of the ancient time-ship known as the TARDIS laid a library. Rich in works from the distant future, of authors yet to be born and stories yet to be told, to collections of a history long gone and forgotten. Written in all languages – Earth-English, Draconian Basic, Cryonian, languages unpronounceable to the human-race. The library seemed to go on forever, Yasmin Khan thought. Yasmin – or Yaz to her friends – would venture deep into the bowels of the ship on some nights, when her friends Ryan and Graham were sleeping. When she was free, The Doctor would join her. The Doctor seemed to forget what books she owned, often criticising the history section for being misleading. “It’s more fiction than history!” she would rant over and over, insulting the printed pages of years she had treaded. 

One of the many properties of the alien craft that eluded Yaz’s understanding was how it automatically translated languages for the travellers. Something about telepathic communication, The Doctor had explained. The ship seemed to tap into the traveller’s subconscious and gifted them with this strange ability. But there was one language that wouldn’t translate. Yaz could spend hours reading about the detailed history of aliens in their native-tongue but on some books, every now and then, was something unreadable. It didn’t seem to be a language, at first. Just patterns of circles. That was until she found The Doctor, one of these books on her lap, reading from it.

Yaz asked what language it was, approaching the woman she had fallen in love with. The Doctor had sunken deep into a bean-bag, her legs crossed – her trousers coming up to her knees. “This? It’s Gallifreyan. It’s the language of my people.”

“So why can’t I read it? I thought the TARDIS translated everything.”

The Doctor closed the book and passed it over to Yaz, who had joined her sitting on a neighbouring bean-bag. The room was a little hide-a-way, behind a tall bookcase that extended as high as the curved ceiling – it was near the cookery section but next to the kid’s books. “Not everything,” began The Doctor, “The TARDIS can’t translate languages it hasn’t learnt. But Gallifreyan? She presumes everyone in it already knows how to read it. It would be like translating a book on speaking English into English.”

Yaz skimmed through the book, the weight of it heavy in her hands from the rich oak covers, engravened with the same patterns of circles. Inside laid lines upon lines of sketches, seemingly carved into being. The same circles, looping and joining in places, several dots and curves in others, and sometimes shapes indescribable to the human eye. “What does it say?”

The Doctor peered over her companion’s shoulder, “That there tells of a creature, a being as old as the Reapers. It comes at night and steals the shoes of children.” Yaz looked over towards her. “It’s a kid’s book”, finished The Doctor, “My mother read it to me a lot. The creature punished those who misbehaved, you see. And to try and trick me into behaving, my mother would take my shoes and blame it on the creature in the book. Never stopped me. I walked barefoot a lot.”

Yaz laughed at this, turning the page to find a sketch of a glass dome, under what seemed to be two suns. Towers were erected inside of the dome. “That’s my home, the ancient citadel of the Time Lords,” The Doctor said, “Inside those towers laid some of the most powerful beings who ever walked the galaxy, and some of the most boring politicians you can imagine.”

“Can you teach me how to write Gallifreyan?” Yaz asked, turning towards her friend. The Doctor made a face at this – a face Yaz recognised as her consideration face. The Doctor seemed to snap as she stood up, quickly grabbing some paper and running back like an excited child. She sat back down with Yaz by her side, handing her some pencils. 

“Only Gallifreyans are meant to know how to read this. Oh, this is so naughty. My mum would so take my shoes if she knew. Don’t tell her.” The Doctor flattened the paper out and began drawing the circles over and over. “Okay, this is our alphabet roughly translated to English. A – B – C – and so on. We don’t have some letters in our language, though. The most important thing you need to keep in mind is that our language is non-liner.” The Doctor began writing in her native language, a pencil in hand drawing intricate and detailed circles. “We know exactly how our sentences are going to end before they begin. We start in the end and work backwards. Our language connects us. It bonds us. It allows us a perfect vessel to channel our thoughts, our senses, how we perceive the universe.”

Yaz watched as The Doctor made precise movements with her hands. It was amazing watching her work. Like a fine artist, The Doctor painted the words onto the paper. “Our words, our sentences – they loop back into one another. Each of these smaller circles inside this circle is a word. Then this circle is the sentence in the paragraph. Does that make sense?”

“I suppose so. I don’t understand how you work backwards, though?”

The Doctor took Yaz’s hand, planting a pencil in it. The Doctor guided her hand to the paper, drawing with her. “We work backwards. We understand where we have to end up in order for us to begin our journey to it. We think of the conclusion and work on the filler.” She planted her unused hand on Yaz’s shoulder, and her chin on the other, watching right over it. “New-Wave Gallifreyan is all about our connection to time. It’s beautiful. It’s not about the spoken word or the meaning behind it as much as it is about how we watch the universe. How it spins. How it evolves. And ages. And never stays still. And cries. And laughs. And falls in love. We know where our story ends, and we begin to write what happens before it does.”

Yaz was drawing deep circles, all around the paper. It seemed to go on and on. The pencil never left the page, drawing intricate loops all around. “Just like the pencil, time keeps going. We loop it, we treasure it. We watch as it grows old and then grows young. Details like those dots come later. We create the print, the bone of the sentence, before adding the words. We go smaller and smaller. We know every word we have to say. Every fine detail. From the chapter, to the paragraph, to the sentence, to the word, and to the letter. We work inwards.”

Finally, the pencil left the page, adding in some of those finer details that The Doctor mentioned. In front of Yaz now was a piece of art. Perfect circles inside perfect circles. A paradox of a language made more sense, now. “What does it say?” 

The Doctor nestled her face closer to Yaz’s neck. “It says ‘Let’s go to bed, dear. I love you.’” 

Yaz laughed, “You really wrote something that looks so beautiful just so you can ask to bed me? You really are a flirt.” The two kissed and leaded off, hand in hand.

**Author's Note:**

> Thasmin is end game. I love Thasmin.


End file.
